Tag Archive - homosexuality

I Don’t Need Your Civil War

January 20, 2011 in Bible Thoughts, Church, Culture, History with 54 Comments

The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to hear a case challenging the Washington D.C. gay marriage law.

It seems that a group of residents wanted to put the revocation of the law on the ballot, as was done previously in California. Their petition was denied, and the law kept on the books without the imprimatur of the voters of the District.

In response, a Washington pastor, Anthony Evans, has declared the existence of a “civil war between the church and the gay community.” Of course, Evans hastens to add that this is an unwanted civil war, and “we love our gay brothers and sisters,” but apparently war is at hand because “we have a right as religious people to have a say-so in the framework of religious ethics for our culture and society.”

I was recently given an extended history lesson by my friend David Sehat. His book, The Myth of American Religious Freedom chronicles important episodes in the history of dissent from the traditional Protestant Christian mores in America (review here and here).

Here’s the punchline: when in the history of America Christians have sought to uphold, and impose, a “religious ethic” for society, we have time and again been the perpetrators and preservers of inequality, prejudice, and injustice.

When blacks were fighting for freedom from slavery, we white, empowered Christians developed biblical arguments for sustaining dominance over the black race.

When women were fighting for equal access to voting, to work, to the protections of the legal system, we Christians invoked biblical patriarchy to sustain their subjugation and prevent them from being recognized as persons protected by the law with equal access to its protections and freedoms.

When workers were fighting for just working conditions, we Christians invoked convoluted theological and biblical arguments about why they needed to simply obey their masters as the Master and get off the picket line.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was leading peaceful demonstrations of civil disobedience, our great hero Billy Graham warned that we have to obey the laws of a government even if the law is unjust.

Will we not learn from our history?

To my fellow Christians: when we try to make society after the image of the Bible as we read it, we become perpetrators of the injustice, impression, and baptizing of cultural status-quo that Jesus came to root out, free us from, and transform. The fight over legalized gay partnerships is but the latest in a long string of episodes where we have failed to bring to the “other” the freedom and justice we believe God wants for all people.

Or, if that language sounds too loosy goosy to you, try this. We have refused, in our fights for “religious ethics in society,” to love our neighbor as ourselves, we have not yet learned to “do unto the other what we would have done to us.”

Our attempts to perpetuate our ethics through the legal system has repeatedly moved us from the blessed co-confessors with Peter that “You are the Christ,” to those who stand in need of the rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan.”

For Peter, this came when he would not see that to be Christ is to be a suffering servant. Peter wanted a war. For us this rebuke comes when we will not see that our call to love is a call to be suffering servants, even to those whom we might see as our enemies. Will we really fight a war? Can we imagine that when we stand with Peter rebuking Jesus for setting aside the way of glory that this time we will be recipients of a commendatory “Well done, good and faithful servant”?

Repeatedly when I read the Gospels with my New Testament Introduction courses, we are made aware that the disciples and other first century Jews were looking for a war to free them from Rome. That’s what the Davidic Messiah was supposed to do. But Jesus goes to the cross instead.

If, in our purported following of Jesus we find ourselves promising civil war, we can rest assured that our expectations of what discipleship means stand in as much need of correction as those of Jesus’ first followers.

So, Rev. Evans, I don’t need your civil war. Because I love my gay brothers and sisters, even as you claim for yourself, and because Jesus shows me that Christian love is taking up the cross rather than taking up the sword, I part company with you here and stand by them.

My Take-Aways from the Homophobia Conversation

November 12, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 11 Comments

For the past few days an excellent conversation has been unfolding in the comments section of the post in which I called for a moratorium on use of the word homophobia. Here are a few of my thoughts in response to those many excellent comments, the most important of which is the last one.

(1) I think that sometime in the next few days I’ll post a summary of my position on homosexuality and ask you if I’m homophobic or not. We’ve been talking in third person generalities, and maybe it’s time to move the conversation a bit.

(2) The reasons why I initially posted asking for a moratorium on the term “homophobic” have been reinforced, as has my desire to see us drop the term in the interest of more civil dialogue. It is a word designed to carry negative, pejorative connotations, it was developed and is used in order to imply that those opposed to any sort of homosexual activity are fear-mongers, and like so many other labels it alienates rather than inviting the other into understanding, conversation, and perhaps even eventual acceptance.

(3) As a Christian interested in how we handle this as both a theological and social issue, I am committed to not repaying like for like. You can insist on calling me a homophobe if you want, but I will strive to avoid condescending language and, more importantly, will continue to be committed to conversation with people for whom use of the “homophobic” language is important.

(4) Also, because of the prejudicial nature of the word “homophobic,” I continue to ask other Christians to avoid it in the name of Christian charity.

(5) My more affirming readers have rightly pointed out that there is no simple “acceptance of what the Bible says” that does not involve us as interested (vs. disinterested) readers, deeply embedded in various cultures (including not only our broadly 21st century western culture but also ecclesiastical cultures).

(6) Related to 5, there are some not-so-good Christian arguments for being opposed to homosexual practice, but there are also some good ones–both biblically and socially.

(7) In all of this, I am all the more convinced that the most important factor to weigh in our discussions is the factor of love. Within the Christian world, I do not think we have a Christian position on homosexuality until we have asked, “What does it mean to love my homosexual neighbor as myself, to do unto my homosexual neighbor as I would have done unto me?” That is where we are most falling short, and where we need to become more impassioned by the heart of our Christian calling, a vocation to imitate our God and Father who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. With such a standard, the issue of whether or not homosexuality is “just” becomes secondary, taking a back seat to our vocation to see them as human beings falling within the purview of our calling to love and to bless.

Re: Homophobia

November 9, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Church with 97 Comments

Recently, Fuller’s president, Rich Mouw, has been revisiting the topic of convicted civility as his book Uncommon Decency has entered a second existence. (Here’s a short from the Huffington Post.)

As the Huffington Post piece illustrates, and as we all know too well, homosexuality is one of those issues on which civil conversation is very difficult to achieve.

In light of that difficulty, I would like to make a request. This is a general request, but one particularly directed at my Christian brothers and sisters to whom I owe a greater debt of love, and who owe the same to one another.

I would like to request a moratorium on the use of the word “homophobic.”

The word means, “someone who is afraid of homosexuals (or homosexuality).” But it is used pejoratively (in parallel with the way folks often use the term “fundamentalist”) to besmirch anyone who thinks homosexuality is wrong.

To think something is wrong and to be fearful of something are often quite different things. Pinning the label “homophobic” onto everyone who thinks that such relationships are not what God intends is not only a misrepresentation of the position, but an unnecessary attack on the person with whom you disagree.

So how about it? Can we take a step toward more civil discourse by dropping this inflammatory language?

Good News Happening

October 5, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 1 Comment

It’s far too easy at times, and usually better for the blog stats, to track controversies and jump into the middle of the fray. But this evening I want to take the daring step of saying that a couple of people are getting it right and to celebrate the way that two people are living the gospel story.

First, Kirsten Vogel posted on her blog today about having to come to terms with her husband’s desire to donate his kidney to a good friend. This is an inspiring story of a family that is willing to enact a gospel story in which life is found by losing it.

Then, there was a post on the CNN Belief Blog by Warren Throckmorton calling for a genuinely Christian response to the issue of gay bullying–not a passive ignoring of the problem, but an active pursuit of a world in which we love our neighbors as ourselves. And he does it all without having to advocate for any particular stance on the issue of homosexuality itself.

And that’s precisely the point. We love our neighbor as ourselves. And if we have to ask who our neighbor is, we realize then that we are the Priest and the Levite, leaving the man on the side of the road for someone else to love as God would have him loved.

Final Thought on Homosexuality

August 18, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 37 Comments

I’ve posted on issues of homosexuality several times in the past few weeks. It’s not one of my hobby-horses, but with Prop 8 being overturned and drafting a chapter in a book on the subject I’ve had cause to ponder the issue and the blog is the overflow of my musings.

In essence, this is where I am: biblically, there is a normative, positive indication of heterosexual relations as being God’s intention for sexual expression, and clear injunction against homosexual relations being so blessed.

Moreover, unlike other issues such as slavery and women’s and men’s relationships, the New Testament stands against the socially accepted norm of the day rather than reflecting / tacitly endorsing it. And, unlike other issues such as gender relations, there is no ambivalence in scripture on this issue. Thus, I am still in that traditional camp of putting homosexual practice in the category of sin.

Is that the end of the story?

I don’t think it’s the end of the story, though it’s a point that we must continue circling back on. There is still an argument to be made, but it will face an uphill  battle, and I remain unconvinced that it outlines the course we should follow.

The question of how we deal with an ancient issue in a current context is convoluted. What constitutes new data? Is it significant, for example, that we have indications of genetic dispositions toward homo- or heterosexual desires?

While I don’t find the physiological or natural-disposition arguments to be all that compelling (scripture points to myriad “natural” inclinations that we are called to put to death by the power of the Spirit), there is one piece of data that I think is genuinely new and demands serious consideration.

That new piece of data is that there are homosexual Christians who are striving to faithfully follow Jesus as homosexuals. Their sexuality is not lived as a self-conscious affront to the God of Jesus, but as part of the on-going life of faith, attempting to live a life faithfully submitted to God in all respects.

So what is the argument to be made?

In a manner analogous to Paul’s arguments for including Gentiles as Gentiles, the church might come together and determine that the presence and power of the Spirit is so manifestly present in homosexual believers as homosexual believers that we are in a position of no longer being able to say that we should require a transformation for those whom God has accepted like this.

Those of us who are not willing to acknowledge homosexual practice as a faithful expression of Christian faith should always bear in mind that biblically Paul had at best a round-about theological argument for inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles, while the conservative Judaizers had clear biblical mandate for the continuing requirement of circumcision. Both the Abraham narrative itself and some pictures of eschatological consummation in the OT indicate the need to be circumcized / Jewish in order to be part of the people of God.

Both Luke Timothy Johnson and Stephen Fowl have made arguments in favor of homosexuality using such an analogy with the inclusion of the Gentiles. While I do not think that the case has been persuasively made, and while it will need substantial church support that it does not currently enjoy now, I think it is the most viable way forward for making space for homosexual practice within the church.

In the mean time, I continue to think that one of the most important things that traditionalists such as myself can do is to keep asking, “What does it mean to love my homosexual neighbor as myself?”

While it might seem idealistic to some (o.k., I love idealism, so sue me), I would like to see a world in which even those with whom we disagree on religious issues would recognize us as their champions in a world full of others who would perpetuate injustice against them on the basis of such preferences. Can we who follow Jesus ever again attain to his standing in the community where even the consummate outsiders would come to him, knowing that he would help?

That, it seems to me, should be our goal with respect to the people of the earth. If loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength seems to stand in antithesis to loving our neighbor as ourselves, I think we have probably misunderstood the vocation to love God.

“Gospel” Response?

August 12, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 28 Comments

Once upon a time, Martin Luther divided the Bible in half. There was gospel. And there was law. If I may employ his taxonomy without endorsing its validity: the editors of Christianity Today asked a bunch of evangelical leaders about the gospel response to the judge’s overturning of Prop 8, and what they got instead was the law response.

Prop 8 was a ballot measure in California to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It was passed. And now a judge has overruled the voters.

So now that a judge has decided that gays can legally marry in California, what is the “gospel” response?

Without rejecting efforts like Proposition 8, politically conservative evangelicals should shift their focus toward equipping the next generation of leaders with the philosophical and theological training they need to affect society and government from the “top-down.”

Commentary: “Jesus, how about when you reign on high you sit one of us at your right hand as president of the world superpower and the other at your left as chief justice of its judiciary!” “You don’t know what you ask, can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I’m going to be baptized with? … You know that the Lords of the earth lord it over their people… it shall not be so among you.

The decision of Judge Walker could lead to a Supreme Court ruling as charged as Roe v. Wade. Christians who thought they would be able to just sleep through this issue will not be allowed to.

Commentary: Ok, so “not sleeping” means defending our religious conviction as the position of the Federal Government? To arms, my comrades! To arms! This is the “good news”? For whom, exactly?

…we should focus our efforts not on swaying political opinion but on teaching people what the Bible says about God’s plan for marriage and the family.

Commentary: so “the gospel” is about teaching the right things. If only we teach better all will be well!

Two of the people surveyed hit the nail on the head, and I suppose that’s why they surveyed so many folks: so that each of us can find someone we think got it right and identify the others whom we think are the sell-outs. (Self-deprecating irony alert.)

Alan Chambers, who actually knows gay people, said this:

I believe that our attitudes towards people (internal and external) are just as important as our positions on the issues at hand. So, when I first saw the news that Prop. 8 had been overturned, my very first thought was, “Dear Lord, please let the Christians who speak in response to this share your heart and not their judgment.”

And Jenell Williams Paris said this:

An even more immediate challenge for those who believe marriage is properly between a man and a woman is to live with genuine love and concern for homosexual individuals and families in our local contexts.

The overall thrust of the responses was that we need to figure out how to establish the reign of God on earth by establishing the law of God in our states.

But when Jesus was asked what, exactly, that law is that is to govern our participation in the reign of God he said, “Love the lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might; and, love your neighbor as yourself.”

The “Gospel” response to Prop 8? “How do I love my homosexual neighbor as myself?”

Each generation we look back in horror at the things that have been done in the past, taking refuge in the thought that, had we been there, we would have defied the majority and fought for what’s right. How easy retrospect is!

  • “If I had been in Calvin’s Geneva, I would never have approved the burning of Servetus!”
  • “If I had been at the Westminster Assembly I would have stood against the regicide!”
  • “If I had been alive in the Middle Ages I would never have gone on crusade!”
  • “If I had been alive during the Spanish Inquisition I would have been a voice for grace!”

And, every generation we are given a mirror in the issues of our own day to reflect back to us that, no, had we been alive we would have capitulated to power and injustice–would have refused to ask, “What does it mean to love my neighbor?”–just like those who came before us did.

Oh no, if I had been alive in the first century I would never have participated in his crucifixion. And I know that because I faithfully hold fast to everything that’s written in the scriptures and pour my life into seeing that it’s upheld!

Yes, there were those in the first century as well. And they weren’t the followers of Jesus but the Pharisees who went off with the Herodians to plot how to kill him.

If I had been alive in the 21st century, I would have forced the Christians in my community to ask, “What does it mean to love your homosexual neighbor as your Christian self?”

No, you didn’t.

Sin, Brokenness, & Enslavement

August 4, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 8 Comments

Once upon a time, I was having a conversation with She Who Is More Learned Than I, and She made a comment about the prevalence of the language of “brokenness” these days–an abundance of use that has come at the expense of the language of “sin”.

More recently, I have been working in two areas at once. On the one hand, I have been teaching a class on the cross in the New Testament. Part of this course is working through various models of the atonement, studying how they conceive of the problem of sin and how Jesus’ death provides the solution.

On the other hand, I have been writing about sex and homosexuality for my book on Jesus and Paul. Doing this, I was struck by the way that much contemporary conversation about sexuality has distanced sexual practice from something that might be labeled “sinful” (except in cases of rape, pedophilia, etc.).

And so studying sexuality reaffirmed to me the importance of what I learned in talking to my colleagues and in studying atonement theories: In order to articulate a Christian position on any issue, including sex, we have to work with multiple metaphors.

When we look at atonement theories, these are some of the things we hear:

  1. The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many. “Ransom” language imagines us as enslaved to a hostile power.
  2. By His stripes we are healed. “Healing” language imagines us as wounded or broken and in need of mending.
  3. Blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. “Forgiveness” language imagines us as guilty.

I think the point is this: we are doing well in evangelicalism these days spreading our wings and attempting to fly with a broader array of images about atonement. This opens the door for us to recognize more broadly the effects of sin and thereby celebrate more fully the redeeming work of Christ that delivers us from all sin’s effects. He frees us from our slavery. He heals us from our brokenness. He forgives us for our sins.

But once we’ve so expanded our vision of what living in a sinful world entails, we are confronted simultaneously with the various ways that we need all of Christ in every area of our lives.

If we have anger problems, that not only means we have guilt in our anger that needs to be forgiven, but likely some brokenness in our way of responding to the world and woundedness in our hearts that need to be healed before we can respond to our world with grace and patience. Moreover, if we have such a problem there is a power working to enslave us to this sinful passion from which we need to be freed.

And so I make the modest suggestion that when we deal with sex as a particular issue, we must anticipate that we will see evidence of sinful expressions that need to be forgiven, seemingly inescapable desires from which we need to be freed, and driving forces in broken and wounded hearts and bodies that need to be healed.

To claim that God is not concerned with what we do sexually is to revert to an insufficiently physical gnosticism. To cordon off sex from the realm of our humanity possibly marred by sin is to insufficiently recognize both the need for and extent of Christ’s atoning work.

Authority, Compassion, & Kingdom

July 30, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 0 Comments

Yesterday’s post on the pragmatic nature of love in the Kingdom of God raised some good questions, and provoked a couple further thoughts for yours truly. (Incidentally, this is one reason I blog: not because I have something to say all the time, but because often if I just say something there will be a conversation that furthers my own thinking, pushes me to explore a new crevice, shows me the limits of my own understanding.)

The very good question was raised about individual salvation, and the possibility that someone might gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul.

This got me thinking a bit about who comes to Jesus, and what such an approach might signify.

The main thrust of my reflections from yesterday was, essentially, that Jesus [almost] never does a bait-and-switch. If someone comes in asking for healing, he doesn’t tell them that what they really need is to have their soul set right with God. He seems to trust that they have actually come to him to have their real problem dealt with.

We evangelicals are often much less comfortable with such attention to worldly needs, fearing that providing for them might get in the way of supply what’s truly needful; or, using such provision as a bait-and-switch for the “real” thing, which is the message we bring with us.

But that got me thinking, Who are these people who come to Jesus? Why are they coming to him? Is there something in their coming that might indicate some level of faith? In fact, it got me thinking: why do people come to Jesus and who would we need to be in order for people to come to us?

Jesus’ inauguration of the Dominion of God indicated at least two things: (1) he had power/authority to control the world in which we’re living–changing it for the better, beating back its evils; and (2) he had the compassion to help those who would come to him with their need.

As I’ve been thinking about the failures of Christian love over the past couple of days, I’ve been honing in on 2 as the principal area in which we are failing to image Jesus for the world in which we live. And I find myself asking questions that would draw out answers to the question, “What kind of people would we need to be in order for even our apparent enemies to come and ask for help in time of need?”

If a Roman centurion would come to Jesus and ask for help in healing his servant, this tells me that he not only knew of Jesus’ great authority, but that Jesus’ use of that authority was not restricted to the insiders. I think we have failed here.

But here’s where some of the rub comes in–that centurion is still coming to Jesus with faith that Jesus is a man of sufficient authority to heal his ill servant. Not even in Israel has Jesus seen such faith. So even in the coming there’s a faith in the person of Jesus as Lord.

But that brings me back again to us. As those who bear Jesus’ name, who are called to extend his mission into our own time and place, do we so act that the world around looks at our deeds and says, “There is a place where great power is at work to transform the world for good”?

Do we so act that people see the power of the Spirit of the resurrected Christ flowing through us such that they would come to us to aid them in those places where they see that the world is not as it should be, in need of transformation?

And do we so act that the world, watching what we do, knows that it can come to us and find us, as those who act like our heavenly Father and firstborn brother, to be an ever present help in time of need?

Pragmatics of Love

July 29, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 6 Comments

In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post on homosexuality and justice, I had a few thoughts on the pragmatic nature of my argument about endorsing civil liberties as an expression of love. To be sure, there was a bit of a theological component as well, an appeal to Jesus’ commands to love our neighbor, but when it came right down to it, I argued that people know, to a certain degree, when they are being met with love and when they are being met with… well… something else.

Yesterday I alluded to the Good Samaritan story as one depiction of the pragmatic nature of love. But I think the thread is even more extensively woven through the Gospels narratives.

When we see Jesus encountering the world around him, we find him willing to respond to and rectify the ills of the felt needs of the people around him.

We cannot love without pragmatism. What we see in Jesus is that, for all that he was advancing an agenda to proclaim and inaugurate the reign of God, he was ever submitting himself to the agendas set by the people who came to him.

What this tells us about the Kingdom of God is that it is more extensive than the agenda of proclamation and conversion that we as Christians will always, to some extent, carry with us. Once we recognize that the Kingdom of God is not just about the saving of souls, or the sanctification of the church, but the wholesale reordering and rectification of the cosmos, then we realize not only the possibility but the responsibility to work for holistic restoration of the space within which we find ourselves.

Or, to put it more simply: I am as much an agent of the Kingdom of God when I work for accessible healthcare and when I proclaim that Jesus died for our sins.

When the gospel is big enough to rectify not only the sinful and enslaved condition of individual human hearts but the brokeness of human bodies and the corruption of human systems then we can see that the gospel itself gives us space to act as agents of the good news even where those who would benefit are not interested in bowing their knees to the resurrected Lord.

It’s when we apprehend the breadth of the gospel that we are free to serve and to love–being willing to respond to the needs of the people around us rather than leading with an agenda of conversion.

It’s then that we can see that holding onto a gospel call to faith and repentance is no enemy of agitating for the civil liberties of those who do not affirm the Lordship of the one who is giving them liberty.

Homosexuality and Justice

July 28, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 16 Comments

A few days ago I posted a few thoughts about why I don’t find parallels between slavery debates and homosexuality debates to be persuasive. In short, when it comes to the issue of homosexual practice, I am not persuaded that the issue within the church is an issue of realizing the justice and liberty that are ours in Christ.

But as I have mulled this over, I have feared that I may have done wrong in merely stating that much and no more.

Here’s the more: the same Christian story that compels me to deny the church’s blessing on same-sex unions also compels me to fully support the civil rights of homosexuals.

In short, the state should have a mechanism for sanctioning homosexual couples as united in one household, and the laws of the state pertaining to spouses should extend equally to all such partners, and exclusion from public office, commerce, housing, and the like should be met with the same recriminations that the state metes out on racial and religious prejudice. And let’s not forget tax deductions, for crying out loud!

What sort of reading of the Christian story would lead me to the conclusion that this is a quintessentially Christian position? Quite simply, it’s the command to love neighbor (together with Jesus’ closing of the “who’s my neighbor?” loophole) as interpreted through the Golden Rule.

What does it mean to love my neighbor? What does it mean to do what I would want done to me?

If someone did not approve of my choice of a spouse, would I still want that person to protect my right to cover my wife on my employer’s health insurance plan? If my wife’s state-funded employer poked around and found out that I work at an institution that discriminates based on religious conviction, would I still want them to allow me to be covered under her insurance and receive spouse survivor benefits should she die–even though my work and life is antithetical to the state’s commitment to non-establishment of religion?

If I were sick in the hospital, would I want the hospital to be legally required to allow the partner I love to come visit me?

There is no way of reading the church’s posture toward the world as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and still argue based on our set of convictions that we are acting obediently when we fail to not only approve of but even advocate for full inclusion of homosexuals in civil society.

If all of this seems too far from home, perhaps we should remind ourselves of some of the other things that the NT teaches about sex and marriage, and ponder whether we want those, too, to be the bases of difference in civil society.

Should the state refuse to acknowledge a marriage in which one of the partners has been previously divorced?

Should an insurance company be able to cancel the insurance policy of a spouse who commits adultery?

When the shrewd lawyer attempted to back Jesus into a corner by pinning him down on the extent of this “love your neighbor as yourself” business, Jesus replied with a most unlikely story. A religious outsider, an idolatrous Samaritan, sees a beaten, wounded man on the side of the road and lends assistance where the religious professionals, in order to obey nothing less than the law of God itself, passed by.

Who was the neighbor who loved? It was the person who showed mercy.

Who was not a neighbor? It was the religious people who upheld the Law.

O.k., but Luke was a bleeding heart liberal, chapter 4 and all that. What about the good ol’ Sermon the Mount Jesus?

He is the one who commanded: “Let your light so shine before people that they will see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Did you catch that? We are to be acting in such a way that people outside the community see that we are workers for good in way that compels them to glorify the God who is, himself, the source of the light that we shine.

And once again, as an evangelical Christian the question is turned on me: have I shone the kind of light for my homosexual neighbor that would cause him or her to see my good work and glorify my Father in heaven?

Both as an individual and as a member of a community I know that I have failed, that we have failed, to show this kind of love.

Please forgive me.

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